It's always a bummer when you decide to try something new, only to discover that it's not your scene. Crowdmug for iOS helps you avoid these situations by harnessing the most effective crowd motivation tool of our time: money.

The premise is simple: offer cash for photos or videos of whatever place and people will answer. Let's say you're trying to decide which bar you want to go to and you're in the mood for some live music. You can post requests for multiple videos from multiple bars offering a couple bucks for each video. If all goes well, you'll have the information needed to make an informed decision and some lucky bar crawlers will be having a drink on your tab. It's a win-win. The cheapskates out there will be glad to know that any photos or videos uploaded to the service are free for anyone to view. Maybe you'll get lucky and not even have to pay.

As with most products with "crowd" in the name, this thing will only work if a significant amount of people actually start using it. I'm doing my part in taking the plunge. If anyone's interested, I'm offering pictures of my front yard at 50% off for a limited time. Free on [iTunes]

You can keep up with Michael Zhao, the author of this post, on Twitter.